Journey's Weekly Homilies

I grew up on a farm-ranch operation in central Montana.  Death was just part of the scenery.  My father would bring home, seventy pound, newly born calves in the middle of the night and lay them over the heat register in the house, hoping that in being warmed up they might survive.  Many did and were returned to their mothers with the morning.  Some did not and our task was to drag the dead animal to the bone yard, to rot with all the other causalities of years of ranching.  That bone pile would stink in the summer and no matter what the time of year always seemed a weary place, a place where one could come to know too much.

Death was not hidden from us, as something too terrible for children to see, but simply a part of our lives.  When a human member of the community died, people for miles around attended the funeral.  It didn’t matter if that neighbor had lived far across the coulee, and the only time you ever saw them was a chance meeting in town.  The whole family dressed in our best, went to town to remember this one who had gone before us, to tell stories and to break bread with one another, at the potluck that was always shared after the body had been taken to the cemetery.  We recognized the grief of those who had lost a loved one and all of us were the surest sign that the story does go on.

I went off to nursing school and onto my first job as a medical surgical nurse. So as sweet and naive a young nurse as I was, I brought some knowledge of dying and death with me.  I also bought faith, faith in a God whose story of creation did not end with death, but continues as a promise of life beyond death.  By then, I was residing in the biggest city in Montana; still it is a small world.  I would often serve as cantor during the funeral mass for someone I had just cared for as a nurse a few days before.  To me it seemed a complete circle.  I got to hear real stories about this person, whom I had known only as a sick and dying human one.

Around this time one of the priests at my parish began to preach a series of homilies, which always included the question where are you going?  As the weeks went on we were all primed to respond, Heaven.  The question for me then became is that all there is?  I began to reject faith in the afterlife, in fact to scorn it, for it seemed to me an easy way out for us Christians.  Just proclaim faith in Jesus, and that was all there was to it, you were heaven bound. So what?  It is when we ask this question of our churches; our communities and ourselves that we begin our walk as Christian adults and from that moment on to carry our crosses.  It is no accident that Simon of Cyrene is forced in to service in tonight’s gospel.  He represents the outsider, those on the fringe of hope who aren’t quite sure how they ended up walking along side Jesus. Aren’t even sure they want to follow after Jesus, but finding themselves with out other options.

We come to know this bone yard of broken promises, of splinters and smoke, of war and famine because we have been given eyes to see and ears to hear.  Like the disciples before us we are human and we run away from what we can’t bear to see and hear.  We try to deny that we have even heard the gospel, this good news. Resurrection begins to terrify us for we see more clearly the costs of discipleship.  We hide away to our upper rooms hoping not to be found out.  There is no place for hiding, any time or space, everywhere we know too much.

Where then does our hope lie?  Why keep longing for the reign of God to be made real?  Many of Jesus’ disciples ran away, abandoned him to the powers of church and state.  Some few though kept watch over this human one, the women kept vigil, followed after Joseph to see where the body lay, and came then to anoint the body of this one they loved. 

Just as they were wondering who would roll away the stone that had been placed over the hole where Jesus lay, a young man appeared to them, greeted them and told them not to be frightened.  You seek Jesus of Nazareth who was crucified.  He has risen, he is not here; see the place where they laid him.  Go, tell the disciples and Peter that he is going before you to Galilee; there you will see him, as he told you.

Go back to where this all began. We do not know the meaning of resurrection, but like those early disciples we can hold fast to what we do know: that Jesus still goes before us, summoning us to he way of the cross. Mark’s ending is the hardest ending of our four passion narratives. Not that the human ones life has ended in crucifixion, not triumphant victory over death, but an unending call and challenge to follow after. 

Tonight is about death after all.  In the face of death, faith again fills me with the knowledge that there is a heaven somewhere, some place where those I love are made whole.  I hope one day to join them there.

But that is not the story Jesus gave to us to live the resurrection. 

I hope my whole life long to meet you on the way